Sunday, August 28, 2016

NY Times worries Israel will make peace with Saudi Arabia and leave the 'Palestinians' in the cold

In an editorial in Sunday's editions, the New York Times worries that Israel will make peace with Saudi Arabia (and Egypt, with which we made peace nearly 40 years ago) and leave the 'Palestinians' out in the cold.

The Israelis and the Saudis
have reasons to work together. They share antipathy toward Iran, the leading
Shiite-majority country. Both are worried about regional instability. Both are
upset with the United States over the Iranian nuclear deal and other policies,
including those dealing with Syria. For some time, Israeli and Saudi officials
have been cooperating covertly on security and intelligence matters.

...

It’s hard to tell sometimes
whether and through whom the Saudi royal family is speaking, and some analysts
do not view General Eshki as a serious interlocutor. But his visit to Jerusalem, which included a meeting with members of Parliament,
suggested a new Saudi openness to testing how the public in both countries would
react to overt contacts.

Significantly, Saudi Arabia has also begun a media
campaign in the kingdom, apparently to prepare its citizens for better relations
with Israel.

In recent years, Israelis
and Saudis have encountered each other often at academic and policy forums. In
addition, Israel has established separate official channels of communication
with Saudi Arabia, as well as with the United Arab Emirates, and these channels
are considered “real and significant,” according to Daniel Levy, president of
the U.S./Middle East Project.

Egypt
has also been pursuing warmer ties with Israel. A week before the Saudi
delegation arrived, Sameh Shoukry became the first foreign minister of Egypt
to visit Israelin nine years. Although the two countries signed a peace treaty in 1979, the
relationship never fulfilled its promise. However, ties have improved since
Abdel Fattah el-Sisi became Egypt’s president in 2014, enabling greater security
cooperation against Hamas in Gaza and the militants battling Egyptian troops in
the Sinai.

Where does this leave the
Palestinians? Both the Saudi and Egyptian visits were ostensibly aimed at
promoting peace between Israel and the Palestinians, who have relied on the
Sunni Arab states to advance their interests. General Eshki, for instance,
talked of reviving the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative, which promised Israel
normalized relations with the Arab League countries as part of a deal to end the
Palestinian conflict.

Unfortunately, neither the
Israelis nor the Palestinians show interest in serious peace talks. And there
are reasons to doubt that the Palestinians are the Arab countries’ real focus.
Mr. Netanyahu, in fact, has made clear his preference for improving relations
with the Arab states first, saying Israel would then be in a stronger position
to make peace with the Palestinians later on.

Of course, improved
relations between Israel and its Arab neighbors do not preclude a Palestinian
peace deal. The danger is that these countries will find more value in mending
ties with each other and stop there, thus allowing Palestinian grievances, a
source of regional tension for decades, to continue to fester.

In an interview given by Zuhair Mohsen to the Dutch newspaper Trouw in March 1977, Mr. Mohsen explains the origin of the 'Palestinians':

The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab
unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians,
Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical
reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people,
since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a
distinct "Palestinian people" to oppose Zionism.

For tactical reasons, Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa and Jaffa, while as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan.

It's long past time to acknowledge reality: There aren't going to be two states - a Jewish state of Israel and an Arab state of 'Palestine' living side-by-side in peace - unless the Arab state is the one known today as Jordan. The 'Palestinian grievances' can never be satisfied, and even the Arab states recognize today that they have more important things to do with Israel than try to dismember it by creating a 'right of return' for 'Palestinian refugees' who are non-citizens in weaker Arab countries like Jordan, Syria and Lebanon. There will be no 'right of return.'

The 'Palestinians' who live within Israel (including Judea and Samaria) will either learn to accept reality and economic and political conditions in the State of Israel that are far better than those anywhere in the Arab world outside of the royal families of the Gulf, or they will leave for Western countries that are willing to have them (Frau Merkel?). And Israel will eventually have relations with Saudi Arabia, the Emirates, and maybe even Qatar (which today is Hamas' biggest supporter) because economic realities dictate that those relationships will happen.

And the New York Times will go off crying into the sunset. Speedily and in our times.

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About Me

I am an Orthodox Jew - some would even call me 'ultra-Orthodox.' Born in Boston, I was a corporate and securities attorney in New York City for seven years before making aliya to Israel in 1991 (I don't look it but I really am that old :-). I have been happily married to the same woman for thirty-five years, and we have eight children (bli ayin hara) ranging in age from 13 to 33 years and nine grandchildren. Four of our children are married! Before I started blogging I was a heavy contributor on a number of email lists and ran an email list called the Matzav from 2000-2004. You can contact me at: IsraelMatzav at gmail dot com